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'09 Kawi Versys

"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP" - Leonard Nimoy

I finally was able to identify two real ones in a battle today. They didn't move at all... perhaps because the script to control them didn't work with both being placed in the same battle? I don't know. If it's like other games, though, a bot name to be some aggressive name (chosen from a list I guess) with random numbers after it seems kind of common.

Anyway, here's my report to WarGaming, and the picture (one of many) I took. Something else to look out for now.

I entered a public Random game just now, and witnessed two Pzk IV's not moving at about the half-way point.

I believe this was a bot player, perhaps attempting to control two tanks at once but having issues.

Both Pzk IV's were outfitted the same (i.e. same gun, same turret, same camo pattern), both had some type of aggressive name with numbers following it, and BOTH had their barrels pointed in exactly the same random place the entire game. Other guys agreed with me that these were bots, and they seem similar to some bots we'd see in Eve Online.

Note that this is not a Bot report for one tank - but for BOTH tanks pictured. They were in this position until the end of the game.

__________________"After reading through this thread I've come to the conclusion
that more people cruise the internet looking for reasons why
X bike won't work in Y scenario rather than actually riding
their motorcycles." --RyanR

Are the bots supposed to be like, autoaim invincible assuming the scripts are working right? And whats up with the different colored name tags?

Personally, I don't understand why anyone would want to bother Botting this game... I don't see how they could profit. Cancel that, I just read what Flood wrote... I see now.

The main goal of botting is usually to make profit via gaining experience points through as little work as possible. The "as little work as possible" part is working, here, so maybe he didn't have any other script than to enter tanks into a battle? Tanks gain XP for winning even if they don't do anything.

What's up with the colored tags? They have something to do with the Win Ratio mod I installed. To some degree colors represent differing degrees of win ratios. At the beginning of a game, with the initial tank list before the map appears, I can see each players' overall win ratio, and the numbers of games they've played in the thousands (so... like 8k, 15k, or the ever-worrisome Tier 8 players with only 2k battles). I don't like the colored names, and there is a way to shut them off.

Here you can take a look at the numbers under an enemy IS-3 in the right upper corner of this screenshot. This IS-3 and his two Ferdinand friends both had way, way better win ratios than I see even in any one tier8 tank for weeks at a time. The number under his over-marker is 70%, which means a 70% win ratio overall. When I saw his platoon with the two Ferdis, and knowing they would work together... I knew my team of misfits wasn't ready for them. We predictably lost... hard.

Now why does it choose purple for good players? I don't know... and there may be some other color meaning that I don't know about yet. You can see I'm green, with my T34 and a 51% win ratio (fast declining). The account in the post above yours is my other non-premium do-the-slow-grind account to play different tanks. He is typically purple in battles now, he has a 58% win ratio.

__________________"After reading through this thread I've come to the conclusion
that more people cruise the internet looking for reasons why
X bike won't work in Y scenario rather than actually riding
their motorcycles." --RyanR

Hmm that's kinda neat. I need to start looking into various mods for the game.

If nothing else, a good Over Target Marker is both tactically helpful and entertaining.

Helpful - if something is lit up anywhere near you, you can see what type of tank it is. You can use this as - you'll know that you may want to sneak up behind a large TD, where-as a small TD you might just roll right through. Great for knowing if you need to switch to HE for a much larger enemy tank, too.

Entertaining - the damage number that pops up gives certain sense of satisfaction... especially when you light them afire. Tactically, though, you can also see into that jumble of tanks over to the side to know if your guys are handling it, or if they are the ones whose green numbers are rising up in the air. Red numbers good, green numbers bad.

-----

My buddy, a great player in his own right when he isn't drunk, warns that it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy in seeing how bad your team is, then losing due to it. I see where he is coming from, but I don't think he's correct. It is very rare that a team with terrible stats surprises me, but I just now came from a tier 6 through tier 10 battle where is was obvious to the team we may lose due to the numbers of platoons they had (12 of the 14 tanks on that team were platooned, where we had one two-man platoon, plus the enemy had a Maus and IS-7). I saw that, and saw the Maus and the guys he was platooned with were really, really good based on wins... so it looked more hopeless for us from my perspective.

But I did what my T34 could do. We soon lost the center island to the Maus and others, and were down one tank compared to them. Somehow, though, they kinda of disappeared. None of us know if they were waiting for the Maus to get to the base to start capping, or what, but a number of our team saw the chance after we killed off a second TD keeping us from capping, so we all went for cap. We won a game that, stats wise and platoon-wise, we should not have IMHO. The only award at the end of that game was a Sniper, and I was the one who achieved that.

But then there is an issue with the stats the mod puts out, too. For example, I saw a KV-5 with a 10% win ratio two games before. I was incredulous as that is a really tough win ratio to achieve. Sure enough, on checking his stats he really had a 46% win ratio... so the stats mod screwed that number up somehow. (To be honest, he acted like a 10% winner though... he moved about 200 yards from spawn, did not support anyone, and when the remaining 12 of the enemy came for him ... he was able to kill a wounded tank before dying. Waste of a tier 8.)

__________________"After reading through this thread I've come to the conclusion
that more people cruise the internet looking for reasons why
X bike won't work in Y scenario rather than actually riding
their motorcycles." --RyanR

If nothing else, a good Over Target Marker is both tactically helpful and entertaining.

+1
7.2 has a new Marker tab in the setup to change your OTM. It's almost the same as the mod I was using in 7.1. I switched to theirs since mine wasn't working in 7.2 and I didn't feel like messing with it.

Comically, what-ever message that occasionally floats up from a just-destroyed tank is now in Russian on mine. I guess it's something like "Ammo Racked!" or "Explosion!" or... I can't even remember if it's just one word, or multiple words that can pop up from tanks. I only have seen the Russian message like twice since patch 7.3, so that would explain why I can't remember what the English version is, lol.

__________________"After reading through this thread I've come to the conclusion
that more people cruise the internet looking for reasons why
X bike won't work in Y scenario rather than actually riding
their motorcycles." --RyanR

Got my GLD and rammer for the M41 last night. Kind of transformed it. Still have the short gun though.

I was on Mines, sitting on the north hill sniping with my E8. I'd get a couple shots, bring them down to very little hp left and this SU85 would take the kill shot. He called me worthless and told me to get off the hill. What a dumbass.